e. There's
no use for you to try to go there, for you don't know the way; and
if you did go, why, they might come back and find you gone, and
then we'd have to wait for you. So, you see, the best thing to do,
Uncle Moses, is for us all to set quietly down, get our dinner,
and wait for them to come back."

The numerous frights which Uncle Moses had already been called on
to experience about his precious but too troublesome charges had
always turned out to be groundless; and the result had invariably
been a happy one; yet this did not at all prevent Uncle Moses from
feeling as anxious, as worried, and as unsettled, on this occasion,
as he had ever been before. He sat down to the table, therefore,
because Frank urged it, and he hardly knew how to move without his
cooperation. He said nothing. He was silenced, but not convinced.
He ate nothing. He merely dallied with his knife and fork, and
played listlessly with the viands upon his plate. Frank and Bob
were both as hungry as hunters, and for some time had no eyes but
for their food. At last, however, they saw that Uncle Moses was
eating nothing; whereupon they began to remonstrate with him, and
tried very earnestly to induce him to take something. In vain.
Uncle Moses was beyond the reach of persuasion. His appetite was
gone with his wandering boys, and would not come back until they
should come also. The dinner ended, and then Uncle Moses grew more
restless than ever. He walked out, and paced the street up and
down, every little while coming back to the hotel, and looking
anxiously in to see if the wanderers had returned. Frank and Bob
felt sorry that he should feel so much unnecessary anxiety, but
they did not know what to do, or to say. They had done and said
all that they possibly could. Uncle Moses refused to be comforted,
and so there was nothing more for them to do.

At length the hour passed which Frank had allotted as the time of
their absence, and still they did not come. Uncle Moses now came,
and stared at them with a disturbed face and trembling frame. He
said not a word. The situation was one which, to his mind, rendered
words useless.

"O, come now, Uncle Moses," said Frank; "they're all right. What's
the use of imagining all sorts of nonsense? Suppose they are delayed
a few minutes longer--what of that? They couldn't reckon upon being
back in exactly an hour. The guide said, 'about an hour.' You'll
have to make some allowance."

Uncle Moses tried to w